Great for cocktails. Terrible for food. I like an Espresso martini there. Heavy pour. They go through chefs quickly so don't trust the food.

The food was so very bad! We had two appetizers; the fried calamari that had NO calamari (all breading, seriously no fish) and fried mozzarella sticks with the thickest breading I have ever seen! My stick didn't even have any cheese! The meals were equally unremarkable. My nephew said his meatballs were terrible (he only ate one as a result). We were a party of 8 so I won't bother to discuss each dinner. But in general, not good. The best thing we all ate was the olive oil and seasonings for the bread which wasn't bad! In fact, it was delicious! The cocktails every one had were ok and we got a bottle of Chianti that was great! They had a very decent wine list. Our server was very good except he said the calamari was "lightly breaded" which encouraged me to order two for the table! Plus he said the mozzarella sticks were on special that night and yet they too were terrible. Ordering both of them was a huge mistake! We were all starving after having been on the road for hours! In town for a wedding. If we were locals, we would never eat there again! I've been to a lot of Italian restaurants and this was quite possibly the worst one ever! Although the place was busy, and had a piano player for entertainment, (which could have been a positive), the lack of quality of the food was a big letdown. read more

The food was very flavorful and fresh. The restaurant was extremely clean, especially the bathroom. Service was excellent.

Food was ok not spectacular , but it was still a nice place to eat , staff was very friendly

This is not an Italian restaurant. The food is mediocre at best, no ambiance. This place makes olive garden look upscale and authentic and trust me olive garden is not. read more

Pizza delicious! Spinach dip decicious. Leftovers for the next Two days! Staff is very friendy. Toni our server was so Fun! read more

Never had a bad meal there. Jeff is a great host. Their soups are the best! Pastas are all very good too.

this was our first time at this restaurant, and we absolutely loved it. The waitress was absolutely amazing, the service was fantastic, and the food was incredible. The atmosphere was awesome, the lighting was superb, and I cannot stand up good things about coming here to eat with my family tonight. I would highly recommend this restaurant anyone that wants great food, a great atmosphere, great service, and a very reasonable price. We love Italian food and had typically gone to commercial places like Olive Garden, but that comes to an end after eating here. This truly was some of the best Italian food that I have ever eaten in my life, and I cannot wait to go back. highly recommended that everyone check out this restaurant. It's that good. read more

Great food good prices nice staff. Pizza was awesome lasagna was the best ever had. Atmosphere was nice great place to meet friends have cocktails and eat. read more

Stop in here every couple of weeks - great service and great food! Wait staff and management are very friendly. Haven't had a bad meal yet and tried several different things...... Drinks are good too! read more

Excellent service, food, and atmosphere. Darrel, our server was attentive and engaging. The food was wonderful. The atmosphere is classic Italian-American, reminiscent of the 1960's. read more

Bella Notte Ristorante - people sitting at the bar - Italian Near Me - Jackson, Michigan

Our group phoned well in advance that we were looking for a restaurant that could handle 20+ to allow for sufficient staffing and were assured that would not be a problem. Instead, our poor waitress was the only person assigned to our party and was quickly overwhelmed. Additionally, the toilets were largely non-functional. In the women's restroom, one stall was marked out of order and neither of the other two toilets would flush. After two hours, our food finally arrived. For the most part, it was hot and delicious. Avoid the pizza, however, as it arrived very well done on top, but the crust was mostly uncooked. The management needs to do a better job. read more

Decent food, but we set a reservation 3 weeks prior to our prom date with a 2 hour space between the reservation and the beginning of the dance (5:00-7:00). We thought it was an excessive amount of time, but unfortunately it was not. We received our meals at 7:10 after only receiving our appetizers at 6:00. No fault of the server, just poor organization and service. I want it to be better, but it unfortunately undermined my prior expectations. read more

We've been sitting here in the restaurant for over 30 minutes and nobody even asked what we wanted to drink. There's no sense of urgency from the staff and Everyone around us is clearly pissed. We should've read the reviews before coming here. Leaving now to go to the brewery read more

Me and a group of friends went here for prom. Worst place ever. We made reservations a few weeks before our prom day. They didn't even look at the book to see when we were coming or even if we had a reservation. Our server was awful. She didn't take our order for a half hour and then when some of us didn't even get our food. We waited an hour and forty five minutes. We told management, didn't pay, UPDATE: (June 19th 2020) The owner stood outside and had his dog try to attack people. How disgusting of a human being do you have to be? I love to support small restaurants and businesses but after seeing the video, I will never be there again. That owner doesn't deserve that dog or restaurant. Give that building to someone who will actually make a good Italian place out of it read more

Have always liked this place, but staffing is a big issue in our community. We waited an hour for a simple lunch when there was one other table. Maybe they should concentrate on a dinner menu that they could staff for. We probably won't go back unless they can provide a better experience. read more

Attempted to go here for the first time for a romantic dinner for two. As soon as we stepped in the door all we could hear was someone shouting obscenities at the bar, at first I thought maybe a fight was occuring, I then realized it was just a group of highly intoxicated people having an abnormally loud conversation. We were sat at a table, next to another couple who looked horrified by the commotion coming from the bar area. The host asked if we'd like a couple waters, as he went to go get them we decided to make our way for the exit. As we were leaving one of the drunk guys at the bar started barking at us. It was a very strange experience to say the least, and not at all what we expected. The atmosphere was nice, and had a lot of potential to be the romantic upscale restaurant we were hoping to dine at. Instead it felt more like a prison chow hall, so we quickly made our escape. read more

This is Jackson"s four star ristorante and it's the kind of joint you can get a bottle of vino and spaghetti and not break the bank but it ain't Mickey D"s either. Business casual or preppy is the recommended attire most likely and the customer service is friendly and very classy. A great place to take a first date or your prom date to. I don't know if they still do candlelight dinnera but it's top notch either way. read more

First time here! Staff was excellent! Oysters on the half shell and oyster Rockefeller great start to a fantastic meal. First time for Lions head mushroom deep fried appetizer- huge portion- excellent batter and taste. Husband had Ahi-Tuna seared over Mediterranean risotto- highly recommended flavors melded well together. I had the honey glazed salmon over risotto with spinach- generous portion of salmon -cooked perfectly and the risotto was excellent .BRING YOUR APPETITE! Had to get the dessert to go! read more

I won't ever return to this restaurant. Both my husband and I got food poisoning here. We think it was the calamari. Our server was also inattentive and rarely checked in on us. The food was very mediocre. I don't like saying this since we like to support locally owned places but we commented we would have had a better experience and food at Olive Garden. read more

First and last time I will eat at this restaurant. My husband took me out to here because I have been wanting to try it. I understand it was a busy night happened to be a cruise in night. The salad I had was yummy but the main course my fettuccine Alfredo had no flavor to it just a chalky taste and pastie texture. The dessert was amazing the cannoli was the best I ever had. read more

Had dinner for 4. Jeff was our server - outstanding job. Really had a great time sitting outside with the heater. Chicken Marsala was excellent and the Italian Sausage pasta was equally fantastic. Very pleased and will definitely come back. The cannelloni as a birthday surprise was unexpected and again, delicious. Prego! read more

Ugh I've not eaten here in a long time!!! But, salad and bread was delicious BUT the eggplant Parma was absolutely disgusting...grossss!! It was brown, rubbery and didn't taste anything like eggplant, marinara was cold that was on it, cheese not melted. My bestie got the chicken marsala and chicken was dry. Other than that ambience is always nice in there. read more

This is a restaurant that probably should be dressy (let's ignore the big flatscreen TV over the bar) but no one informed most of the clientele. Several other patrons were in shorts or open-toed shoes and one gentleman outside was wearing a baseball cap. The menu looked good and it's AAA diamond rated, so my companion and I went on in, both wearing jeans and T-shirts. The vegetarian entrees are marked in the menu, which was unexpected and helpful, though we're not sure why the chicken alfredo is listed as vegetarian (none of the other chicken dishes are). We ordered the white bean "hummus," the eggplant napoleon and the portabella mushroom ravioli. Your entree ($20 or so; $16 for the two veg options) comes with soup or salad. Some of the dressing choices are very interesting (Italian lemon-thyme, etc.). I got the minestrone; my companion, the salad. While you're waiting, they'll ask if you want bread and olive oil. Say yes. The bread is a nice Italian and the olive oil comes spiked with pesto and grated parmesan. The white bean hummus was really good, and came with chopped green onions, tomatoes, Kalamata olives, and a really good goat cheese (along the lines of a crumbly feta), in addition to baked pita triangles. If the dinner entrees had been up to this standard this would be a 4-star review. The minestrone was very good and tomato-based. The salad was a good middle-of-the-road salad. The eggplant napoleon included zucchini, angelhair pasta, ricotta and of course eggplant. It wasn't at all bitter, though my companion claimed it had too much pepper, and found the zucchini a little salty. My portabella ravioli were bland, though the pasta itself had nice texture. It was pretty much overpowered by the palomino sauce (a mixture of a classic red and a cheese-based sauce). The sauce did include fairly impressive pieces of artichoke, which brought it above the level of a $10.95 dinner entree at a business restaurant, but not quite to the level I expected for this price. Our server was helpful and looked up ingredients I asked her about. Service was a little slow, but she was new. Dinner for two with appetizer, soft drinks was $50 including tip. Not bad, but not quite what I'd hoped for. read more

I went here because I didn't know about the Shwarma place around the corner. My car broke down and I was stranded in Jackson MI and wanted something quick. They were fast, and they give you plenty of food, but I look for restaurants that have fewer cheese items, and they really didn't have that here, so I know it's really my fault but the dish I ordered was delicious, I just would have rather not had cheese on it read more

Went on a Friday early, the food, service and drinks were fabulous. I would highly recommend.

This place is so bad. We set up a reservation almost a week in advance and they took a half hour to bring half our items, then an hour and a half for the rest. Then they took 20 minutes to sort out our checks, plus another 15 minutes to fix them because they disregarded what we said and made them up individually. The food is ok, but I could get it for WAY less literally anywhere else. A horrible experience altogether; we went to Wendy's after and it was half the entire time and equal the quality. read more

Terrible service - we walked out after waiting 20 minutes for anyone to serve us! Definitely beyond it's use by date!

Don't know what's up with the bad reviews for this place but I throughly enjoyed it. Had the Italian sausage pasta that had pancetta and fresh tomatoes. It was extremely tasty. My friend had the meatball dish (forget the name) and he said it was terrific. Service was exceptional. read more

Great place for lunch. My burger was cooked perfect and the chips delish. My friend had a Reuben that was very good. Service was great. It was a Wednesday and I am surprised so few customers. read more

We recently moved to the area about 2 years ago looking for a place to have a good pizza Stopped in just by chance love the pizza have been going back all the time The place is a little dated but the food is always good read more

I travel a lot for business, so I'm often eating alone in unfamiliar restaurants. Most hosts and servers go out of their way to make a solo diner comfortable, but at Bella Notte, I felt like a red-headed stepchild (with apologies to others with recessive hair genes). I was seated quickly, and given water and told my server would be there shortly, but when no sever appeared, the guy who brought me water decided he could wait on me. I ordered a glass of wine, a salad, and a pasta entree (I'd been waiting long enough to decide, obviously). The salad and the bread showed up right away. We're off to a good start, now! The bread is good, and the olive oil for dipping has fresh herbs in it. It does taste and look as if they use only regular olive oil, not extra virgin ~ which has much better flavor. The salad was excellent, but I still don't have anything to drink except a half-full glass of water (it was never refilled during the course of my meal). The server brings my entree, and takes off before I can say anything. There was no sauce on my pasta (I had ordered the vodka sauce), just more flavorless olive oil and a garlicky paste. He doesn't come back to check on me, so I just go ahead and eat it. I LOVE Italian food, and I only can stomach about half the plate. It was like eating wet, naked pasta - there was very little taste to it. As I'm about to tap out, my server suddenly remembers my glass of wine. So now I have to practically chug the thing to get out of the restaurant. Dessert is my only reason for bothering to eat at all, but I just didn't want to stick around for it. Bella Notte achieved something by convincing me NOT to order creme brulee. If coming here is good for my waistline, I'd rather be fat. read more

Tonight I was visiting some friends near Jackson and they wanted to take me somewhere nice. They had only been here for drinks and had never eaten a meal but were under the impression that the food would be good. We were greeted and seated quickly and the greeted was also our waiter. He did the best he could under the circumstances. My friend and I wanted to order Mojitos, but our waiter returned to inform us that they were out of mint. So we stick with water which was never refilled until after we had our food and we asked for more water. When we placed our order, they were out of two things we wanted to order - gnocci and tuna. So my friend ordered a salad, her husband ordered lasagna and I ordered salmon. After several minutes the waiter returned with a menu to inform me that they were also out of salmon. So I chose eggplant. We enjoyed the bread and oil dip that was brought to us, but were disappointed that fresh pepper was offered to the table near us by another waiter and it hasn't been offered to us. So we asked that waiter for some and he brought it to us. Our food took a very long time to come. We wanted water and more bread but our waiter never came back until he brought our food. My friend's salad with no meat came in a hot dish so her lettuce was wilting from the heat and it came with the wrong dressing. The eggplant and lasagna were OK, but not remarkable. The worst part of all was that numerous people were smoking on the patio right by people who were eating and each time they went in and out smoke poured in the restaurant to where we were sitting. I mentioned it to our waiter and he did nothing about it. For the high priced menu, the service, food and atmosphere were completely unacceptable. The only thing that made the experience enjoyable was that we really liked the band. read more

I was visiting Jackson along with some friends. This seemed like the best place for us as we didn't want a chain restaurant. I had the appetizer-sized order of the scallops as my main course. (I wanted a light meal with protein.) It was quite good; an unusual combination of scallops, spinach, tomatoes, and a blood orange sauce. The Pinot noir was fine but unremarkable. The server was fine and surely making a good effort. However, we waited nearly 25 minutes for separate checks to be calculated for the five of us! In fact, service every step of the way was abominably slow. A band set up around 8pm; they were pretty loud, but they were also quite good. However, I personally don't enjoy live music while out for dinner as I then can't hear the conversation at my own table. So beware of this aspect, at least on a Saturday night. If not for the abysmally slow service, I'd have given more stars. That is definitely something for this restaurant to work on. read more

Don't believe these bad reviews. Been here three times from out of town on various week nights. Service is always attentive and food is always fabulous. Had the special this time. Scallop picatta ...wonderful! Good wine selection. Had Marsala last time. Excellent! read more

Bella Notte Ristorante - Scallop picatta! These are bigger than me! - Italian Near Me - Jackson, Michigan

I decided to give Bella Notte another shot today at lunch after a years-long hiatus. I knew I'd eaten there before but just couldn't remember the experience for the life of me... So when a couple of colleagues invited me to lunch with them here, I said sure, why not? Now I remember why I had avoided this place, despite my love of Italian food. I ordered a spaghetti with marinara sauce. One of the other people in my party ordered the chicken gyro, and the other person had a chicken panini. My pasta dish was accompanied with warm, crusty bread which was very good. It came with an oil and spice dip but I have to say the dip was VERY light on the spices. It was basically just oil with some grated parmesean floating in it. Not a whole lot of flavor. Our main dishes arrived fairly quickly, and I was impressed with the portion size of my spaghetti. The sandwiches my colleagues ordered were also very large and each came with a side (chips or fries). I eagerly dug into my dish, but to my disappointment it was rather tasteless. It tasted like the sauce was very watered down and runny and not seasoned whatsoever. All I really could taste was the dried parsley that was gratuitously sprinkled all over my dish (not a great flavor...). My two lunch-mates were happy with their sandwiches, though. They said they tasted very good and seemed to be satisfied. So...maybe go with the sandwiches if you want to give this place a try. An Italian restaurant screwing up basic pasta marina is pretty grievous, in my opinion, but maybe their other dishes are better. As for service, it was prompt and the waitress friendly and pleasant. We dined outdoors and it was clean. Also nice was that the outdoor tables are sort of under the awning so it keeps you from the direct sunlight. read more

Is there a rating lower than one star? My fiance and I were looking for a place to have a nice dinner out, and this seemed to be one of the more upscale places in Jackson. Got dressed up, headed out. When we arrived, there was only one other table of people in the entire restaurant. My reservation was obviously pointless. Bread was decent. We ordered the spinach and artichoke dip as an appetizer. It was supposed to come with pita CHIPS. What arrived was something more akin to a bowl of chopped spinach with cheese on top. No flavor. No discernible spices. Nothing. And it was served with what seemed to be a plain pita from Walmart, hacked into triangles. Fiance ordered chicken alfredo, I ordered lasagna - two of the easiest Italian dishes, should be impossible to mess up... or so we thought! His alfredo was one of the most bland things I've ever eaten. No garlic, no parmesan. Tasted like a can of Great Value brand sauce with all the flavor stripped out. Chicken was undercooked (still PINK). My lasagna had some kind of unidentifiable meat in it and tasted like it was made with ketchup. The only edible part was the cheese on top. To make matters worse, a "band" was setting up while they were there and changed the ambient music to a playlist featuring songs like "Can't Touch This" and "Funky Town." When they actually began playing (about 15 minutes before we left), it became entirely too loud to have a normal conversation. Our bill for the two of us was over $50, for some of the worst food I have ever eaten. I don't know how this place stays in business. read more

In comparison to the other choices in Jackson, Bella Notte is worthy of 4 stars, and glowing review. In comparison to other "Ristorante"s in its class - it is lackluster and unremarkable. Expectations were met but not exceeded. It is far better in quality of food and service than your neighborhood chain restaurants, but in the realm of "fine dining" and Zagat reviews, mediocrity is a compliment. Maybe I could have enjoyed it more were the temperature more reasonable for the season,or the customers. Maybe I could have enjoyed it more were my wrap a little more flavorful. Maybe I could have enjoyed it more had there been some personal touch added to my plate, instead of served to me as if I were in a cafe instead of a "Ristorante". And maybe next time I go we won't be the only customers for lunch. read more

I am always one to support small business but I can assure you that I will NEVER go to Bella Notte Ristorante in Jackson again. I recommend everyone do the same. Clemmie took 17 people there for prom. We had changed the reservation time in person 2 weeks ago. Their food took an hour and 45 minutes to come out. They asked to speak to a Manager who stated they were late for their reservation. Allegedly the woman who corrected the time for us didn't. The Manager then said they could have free ice cream and then pay the bill or he would call the police. He then threw his hands up and walked away refusing to speak to them again. I am beyond mortified by hearing this. They took advantage of teenagers and that is terrible. So not impressed. read more

Stopped in tonight for a high school reunion pre-party. Yes, it was loud in there, but the layout is nice. The band was just starting when my departure time came, but they were doing a good job .... I hated to leave. read more